How important is it to collect inning-eaters? Just ask the team that won the last World Series.
The White Sox were the only team in baseball to have four starters top 200 innings. And that had a lot to do with all of that confetti and champagne that entered their lives in October.
So we decided to look into this. Over the last five seasons, 17 teams have had at least three starters who pitched 200 innings. Twelve of those teams made the playoffs. None had a losing record. And they averaged 92 wins apiece.
Now spin that forward to this year. By trading for Javier Vazquez (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5947), the White Sox have five starters who pitched 200 innings last season.
1980 A's rotation Innings Rick Langford 290 Mike Norris 284.1 Matt Keough 250 Steve McCatty 221.2 Brian Kingman 211.1 Oakland went 83-79, finishing 14 games behind AL West winner Kansas City. Obviously, as your stock broker once said, past performance is no assurance of future returns. But if they all do that again, the White Sox would be the first team since Billy Martin's 1980 Oakland A's to run five 200-inning starters out there in the same year.
But you probably knew about the White Sox's pitching depth. What you might not have noticed is that two other teams have now assembled four pitchers who worked 200 innings last year.
One is the Indians, who added Paul Byrd (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5468) and Jason Johnson (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5885) to last year's 200-200 twosome: Cliff Lee (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7026) and Jake Westbrook (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6500). (And C.C. Sabathia (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6603) missed 200 by a whopping 3.1 innings.)
The other team on this list is a club with a real shot to surprise people -- the A's. They already had Barry Zito (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6394), Dan Haren (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7172) and Joe Blanton (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7461) on board, and added Esteban Loaiza (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5368).
"That's a team that could be this year's White Sox," one AL executive says of Oakland. "I love the depth in their rotation. The back of their bullpen is really strong. If they keep Milton Bradley (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6406) from getting distracted, and they get a full year out of Mark Ellis (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6899), Nick Swisher (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7435), Rich Harden (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7180) and Bobby Crosby (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7223), they can be very dangerous."
Incidentally, two other teams will break out rotations with three 200-inning guys -- the Cardinals (Mark Mulder (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6393), Chris Carpenter (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5771), Jason Marquis (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6493)) and Blue Jays (A.J. Burnett (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6314), Gustavo Chacin (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7463) and Josh Towers (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6712)).

--The CashMan

jamokes

01-23-2006, 04:52 PM

Great post!!! I'll remember all these innings when I draft my fantasy team in March.:smile:

ondafarm

01-23-2006, 06:00 PM

Since starting pitchers have been doing less and less for every decade since the 1910s I would not compare a 2006 team to a 1980 team.

MUsoxfan

01-23-2006, 06:09 PM

"That's a team that could be this year's White Sox," one AL executive says of Oakland. "I love the depth in their rotation. The back of their bullpen is really strong. If they keep Milton Bradley (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6406) from getting distracted, and they get a full year out of Mark Ellis (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=6899), Nick Swisher (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7435), Rich Harden (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7180) and Bobby Crosby (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7223), they can be very dangerous."